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Cosmetics companies know some consumers will do anything for the sake of beauty. In 1933, a woman was hospitalised with excruciating eye pain. Horrified doctors watched as her eyes were eaten away as though by acid.

The culprit turned out to be an eyelash-darkening treatment called Lash Lure, which contained a toxic coal tar dye. Koremlu, a hair removal cream that contained rat poison, was also widely marketed throughout the 1930s. It sold at $10 a jar, a small fortune in those days, despite proof that it caused baldness, pain and paralysis.

In 1936, as noted in American Chamber of Horrors, about the beauty industry, a woman who developed dark rings around her eyes and neck and loose teeth was found to be suffering from mercury poisoning caused by Gouraud's Oriental Cream. This "magic beautifier" had been on the market for decades. (Via ewg.org)

"A well-respected specialty bread shop in Auckland is proudly trumpeting on its Facebook page that their award-winning hot cross buns are back," writes a reader. "Yes, they taste great but when closed in the cabinet they look full of butter. Open them and this is what you get - butter on the outside edge only! Several were bought together and all were like this. And no, the butter had not melted. They were stone cold and dry inside."

"Open them and this is what you get" writes one reader. Photo / Supplied